Kamala Mills Fire : SC grants interim bail to Nagpur's Yug Tuli

Nagpur: After much back and forth, the Supreme Court on Tuesday granted an interim bail to Yug Tuli one of the owners of Mojo’s Bistro restaurant in Mumbai’s Kamala Mills compound where fire tragedy stuck in December 2017. 14 people were killed in the fire accident and the restaurant was cited as one of the major causes behind the fire.

The Supreme Court had on May 1 this year, denied interim bail to Tuli and directed it to again apply for bail at the High Court after three months.

Advocate Shyam Dewani who was earlier counsel for Tuli confirmed this development to Nagpur Today.

“Earlier the Supreme Court had directed the petitioner (Tuli) to move again to the High Court after three months whereas the HC previously rejected the bail,” Dewani told Nagpur Today.

He said when the petitioner’s counsel moved the High Court, Justice Ajey Gadkari had given them the date in January. Dissatisfied over the HC’s move, the petitioner through their counsel again approached the Supreme Court which eventually granted them interim bail.

Meanwhile, the next hearing in the case is posted to January 2019.

Tuli, who was arrested in mid-January this year, had approached the High Court after the sessions court rejected his bail plea. In his plea, Tuli had claimed that the tragedy occured due to the negligence of the staff at 1 Above, another other restaurant that was gutted in the blaze on the intervening night of December 28-29, 2017.

A total of 14 people have been arrested in the case and booked under various sections of IPC, including those related to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and causing death by negligence. The accused include the owners of the Kamala Mills compound, Mojo’s Bistro, 1 Above and two BMC officials.